From: HRCFCOMM@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 19:16:43 -0400
Subject: Elizabeth Birch's "Open Letter" to the Christian Coalition: Text
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OPEN LETTER OPEN LETTER OPEN LETTER
THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND
The Nation's Largest Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights Organization
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To contact the HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FUND, please call us at
(202)628-4160, fax us at (202) 347-5323 or write to us at PO Box
1396 Washington, DC 20013.
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September 8, 1995
Open Letter to Christian Coalition Members
Dear Members of the Christian Coalition:
An Open Letter was not my first choice as a way of reaching you.
I would have preferred speaking to all of you directly, and in a
setting where you would be most comfortable.
That was my motivation, some weeks ago, when I asked your
executive director, Ralph Reed, for the opportunity to address
the Christian Coalition's "Road to Victory" Conference. It is
still my motivation today. And it is supported by a single,
strong belief that the time has come for us to speak to each
other rather than past each other.
It took Mr. Reed very little time to reject my request. Perhaps
he misunderstood my motivation. But I can assure you that what
has driven my request is this: I believe in the power of the word
and the value of honest communication. During my years of work
as a litigator at a major corporation, I was often amazed at what
simple, fresh and truthful conversation could accomplish. And
what is true in the corporate setting is also true, I'm
convinced, in our communities. If we could learn to speak and
listen to each other with integrity, the consequences might shock
us.
Although your podium was not available to me, I am grateful for
those who have come today and will give me "the benefit of the
doubt" and be willing to consider what I have to say. I will be
pleased if you are able to hear me without prejudging either the
message or the messenger. And I will be hopeful, most of all, if
you respond by joining me in finding new ways to speak with
honesty not only about one another, but also to one another.
If I am confident in anything at all, it is this: our communities
have more in common than we care to imagine. This is not to deny
the many differences. But out of our sheer humanity comes some
common ground.
Although the stereotype would have us believe otherwise, there
are many conservative Americans within the nation's gay and
lesbian communities.
What's more, there are hundreds of thousands of Christians among
us -- Christians of all traditions, including those represented
in the Christian Coalition.
And, like it or not, we are part of your family. And you are
part of our community. We are neighbors and colleagues, business
associates and friends. More intimately still, you are fathers
of sons who are gay and mothers of daughters who are lesbians. I
know many of your children very, very well. I work with them. I
worry with them. And I rejoice that they are part of our
community.
Part of what I want you to know is that many of your children who
are gay and lesbian are gifted and strong. Some are famous; most
of them are not. But many are heroic in the way they have
conquered barriers to their own self-respect and the courage with
which they've set out to serve a higher good. All were created
by God. And you have every right to be proud of each of them.
I begin by noting the worthiness of the gays and lesbians in your
family and our community for a reason: it's hard to communicate
with people we do not respect. And the character of prejudice,
of stereotype, of demagoguery, is to tear down the respect others
might otherwise enjoy in public, even the respect they would hold
for themselves in private. By taking away respectability,
rhetorically as well as legally, we justify the belief that they
are not quite human, not quite worthy, not quite deserving of our
time, or our attention, or our concern.
And that is, sadly, what many of your children and colleagues and
neighbors who are gay and lesbian have feared is the intent of
the Christian Coalition. If it were true, of course, it would be
not only regrettable, but terribly hypocritical; it would not be
worthy of the true ideals and values based in love at the core of
what we call "Christian."
The reason I have launched this conversation is to ask that you
join me in a common demonstration that this is not true. I make
my appeal as an individual, as Elizabeth Birch, and also as the
executive director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, America's
largest policy organization for gay men and lesbian women.
This is such a basic appeal -- to human communication and common
decency -- that I do not even know how to distinguish between
what is personal and what is professional. But my appeal is
sincere. I am convinced that if we cannot find ways to respect
one another as human beings, and therefore to respect one
another's rights, we will do great damage not only to each other,
but also to those we say we represent.
I recognize that it is not easy for us to speak charitably to
each other. I have read fundraising letters in which people like
me are assigned labels which summon up the ugliest of
dehumanizing stereotypes. Anonymous writers have hidden under
the title of "Concerned Christian" to condemn me with the fires
of God and to call on all of you to deny me an equal opportunity
to participate in the whole range of American life. I have
heard of political agendas calling not merely for the defeat of
those I represent, but for our eradication.
Such expressions of hatred do not, can not, beget a spirit of
trust. Nor do they pass the test of either truthfulness or
courage. They bear false witness in boldface type. And I
believe that they must embarrass those who, like me, heard of
another gospel -- even the simple gospel taught me as a child in
Sunday School.
I would not ask that you, as members of a Christian group, or as
supporters of a conservative political cause, set aside either
your basic beliefs or your historic commitments. The churches
which many of you represent -- Baptist, for example, and
Pentecostal -- were also the churches I attended as a young
woman. In those days, I heard sermons about justice and sang
songs about forgiveness. My greatest hope is not that you will
give up your faith, but that it will work among all of us.
Neither of us should forsake our fundamental convictions. But we
could hold those convictions with a humility that allows room for
the lives of others; neither of us may be the sole possessors of
truth on every given issue. And we could express our convictions
in words that are, if not affectionate, and if not even kind,
then at least decent, civil, humane. We need not demonize each
other simply because we disagree.
I came to my task in the campaign for human rights with this
conviction: if we, in the name of civil rights, slander you, we
have failed our own ideals, as surely as any Christian who
slanders us in the name of God has failed the ideals of
Scripture.
Some of those who asked me to serve at HRCF may believe that I am
naive, that it is foolish to appeal to "the enemy" for common
decency, let alone to ask for trusting conversations. But those
who wonder about my ideals may not know my childhood.
I am an American, born on American soil, but raised in Canada
throughout my formative years. Even from a distance -- perhaps
especially from a distance -- the American ideal and the
centuries-old American dream captured my imagination and my
spirit. When I saw America, I saw responsible freedom being
exercised everywhere from the picket line to the voting booth.
When I learned of the values rooted at the heart of the American
Spirit, I felt undying hope. That hope is also rooted in the
Judeo-Christian tradition of this nation. From my vantage point
on the Canadian prairies, the promise of America tugged at my
soul. I could fight it, but I could not win, and America quite
literally won my heart.
More remarkable still, all this happened during my adolescence,
when we are most subject to peer pressure, and in the 1960's
during the height of Canadian nationalism. It was, in those
days, as daring to publicly acknowledge your love for America as
it was to come out of the closet as a lesbian.
But I could not hide my affection for my homeland, even though I
saw its obvious failings and shortcomings. I believed then, and
I believe no less staunchly today, that no other nation in the
world offers all its citizens such promises of fairness and
equality, principles that are equally reflected in the Christian
tradition and the American Constitution.
What surprised me when I first became active in America's gay and
lesbian communities was that, in this idealism about America, I
was not alone. Gay men were beaten with baseball bats, and they
went off to find justice, confident that the American ideal would
protect them. Lesbians were fired from their jobs, and they said
to one another, "We'll be protected by the law." So keen was
confidence in the American hope that it took the gay and lesbian
communities decades to conclude, regretfully, that civil rights
are as likely to be withheld as granted, despite the
Constitution; and that true believers are as likely to engage in
cruel discrimination as in compassion, even in the name of
Christ.
Many of us in this community have a long history with the church.
Gay men I have loved deeply and lesbians I've known well have
talked long into the night about their love for God and for God's
church. For some of them, the church had provided the one
message of hope they knew as children. The promise of good news
was seized gladly by adolescents who did not understand why they
were different, or what that difference would mean.
For some, the deepest agony of life is not that they risk
physical abuse or that they will never gain their civil rights,
but that they have felt the judgment of an institution on which
they staked their lives: the church. What they long for most is
what they once believed was theirs as a birthright: the knowledge
that they are God's children, and that they can come home.
And it is not only those of us who are gay or lesbian who have
suffered on the doorstep of some congregations. Parents, fearing
what others at church might whisper, choose to deny the reality
that their son is gay or their daughter is a lesbian. Brothers
and sisters suffer an unhealthy, and unwarranted, and
un-Christian shame. They bear a burden that cripples their
faith, based on a fear that cripples us all.
This means, I think, that we are still a long way from realizing
the ideal of America as a land of hope and promise, from
achieving the goal of religion as a healing force that unites us,
from discovering that human beings are, simply by virtue of being
human beings, deserving of respect and common decency.
And so, I have come today -- in person, bearing this letter, and
in writing to those who will only receive it -- to make three
simple, sincere appeals to those of you who are members of the
Christian Coalition.
The first appeal is this: please make integrity a watchword for
the campaigns you launch. We all struggle to be people of
integrity, especially when we campaign for funds. But the fact
that we are tempted by money is no excuse. We need to commit
ourselves to a higher moral ground.
I do not know when the first direct-mail letter was issued in
your name that defamed gay men and abused gay women, that
described us as less than human and certainly unworthy of trust.
Neither do I know when people discovered that the richest
financial return came from letters that depicted gays and
lesbians with intentionally dishonest images. But I do know --
and I must believe that you know too -- that this is dishonest,
this is wrong.
I can hardly imagine that a money machine is being operated in
your name, spinning out exaggerations as if they were truths, and
that you do not see it. But perhaps you do not. In which case,
I ask that you hear my second appeal: I ask that, as individuals,
you talk to those of us who are gay or lesbian, rather than
succumb to the temptation to either avoid us at all cost, as if
we are not a part of your community, or to rant at us, as if we
are not worthy of quiet conversation.
We are, all of us and those we represent, human beings. As
Americans, you will have your political candidates; we will have
ours. But we could, both of us, ask that our candidates speak
the truth to establish their right to leadership, rather than
abuse the truth in the interest of one evening's headline. We
may work for different outcomes in the elections, but we can
engage in an ethic of basic respect and decency.
Finally, I appeal to you as people who passionately uphold the
value of the family. You have brothers and sons who have not
heard a word of family affection since the day they summoned the
courage to tell the simple truth. You have sisters and daughters
who have given up believing that you mean it when you say, "The
family is the basic unit of society," or even, "God loves you,
and so do I."
Above all the other hopes with which I've come to you hovers this
one: that some member of the Christian Coalition will call some
member of the Human Rights Campaign Fund and say, "It's been a
long time, son" -- or, "I'm missing you, my daughter" -- and
before the conversation ends, someone will hear the heartfelt
words, "Come home. Let's talk to each other."
In that hope, I appeal to each of you.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Birch
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1101 14th Street, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005
phone:(202)628-4160 fax:(202) 347-5323
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